High Praise for the High-Performance, Power-Efficient Phison E31T

The Phison PS5031-E31T controller was first displayed at CES in January 2024 and later ran in a notebook at Computex last June. The controller marks a significant milestone for a computing industry pushing for new levels of performance and efficiency to deliver all-day computing–without the wires that bind us to wall outlets. At the same time, the industry requires higher data transmission rates for emerging technologies like AI and games streaming from disk.

Photo Courtesy of Hot Hardware

Built on the TSMC 7nm lithography process, the E31T maximizes performance and power efficiency. This DRAMless design delivers over 10 GB/s sequential read performance while consuming less than 6 watts of power. Idle power drops to a mind-bending 3.5 milliwatts or 0.0035W, extending notebook battery life so you can make the entire business trip without looking for a plug.

Whether you want a new high-performance PCIe Gen5 M.2 SSD for your gaming desktop or your modern notebook, the E31T will power the best SSDs available for both systems.

Industry experts create positive buzz ahead of the E31T’s release

Computer Base: Phison E31T SSD controller in test: Outlook on efficient PCIe 5.0 SSDs

“With standard M.2 coolers, which are usually included with modern motherboards, temperatures are no longer an issue. PCIe 5.0 is therefore more economical and therefore more suitable for the mainstream.”

Guru3D: Phison E31T controller PCIe 5.0 NVMe SSD – 10GB/s – For the masses

“The Gen5 SSD stands out as a top-of-the-line, premium storage product that meets the highest specifications. It offers exceptional performance and reliability, making it an excellent choice for demanding users.”

Hot Hardware: Phison E31T Preview: PCIe Gen 5 SSDs Finally Go Mainstream

“We suspect the Phison E31T is going to be quite popular in future notebooks/laptops and in space-constrained small form factor systems that can’t accommodate enthusiast-class drives. Although we don’t have pricing to share just yet, Phison claims the E31T is ’designed for cost-conscious shoppers looking for incredible value.’ Considering the reference drive’s single-sided, relatively clean design and its DRAM-less configuration, Phison E31T-based drives are likely to be fairly low-priced when they hit shelves in the coming weeks. They’ll obviously be much more affordable than high-end Gen 5 drives, and likely be more in-line with mainstream PCIe Gen 4-based drives. Couple what is likely to be a relatively low price point with its cool, low-power operation, and notebook OEM/ODMs are probably going to gobble the Phison E31T up in droves and we look forward to seeing what Phison’s partners come up with based on this reference design.”

Kit Guru: Phison PS5031-E31T 2 TB Technical Preview (E31T Controller)

“Using the CrystalDiskMark 8 benchmark we could confirm those official Sequential ratings with default test figures of 10,363.01 MB/s for reads and 8,729 MB/s for writes. Using the Peak Performance profile of CrystalDiskMark 8 we could also confirm the official random 4K figures for the drive with default test results of 1,367,880 IOPS for reads and 1,577,389 IOPS for writes.

The 4K QD1 performance of the E31T is excellent for both reads and writes. Using our 4-threaded 4K tests the reference drive topped both the random read and write performance charts, outperforming the high-end drives that make up the tables.”

NAS Compares: Phison E31T Gen5 SSD Review – Who Needs DRAM?

“This is an SSD designed to give you high performance, but not at the risk of inefficient power consumption or overspending. The E31T controller presents a very power-efficient SSD controller package, and with Gen5 SSDs finally becoming something usable in modern Intel and AMD architectures, there is definitely a place for a drive like this in more modest OS deployments.”

TechPowerUp: Phison E31 PCIe 5.0 SSD Engineering Sample Preview – Impressive Efficiency

“Thermals of Gen 5 drives have always been challenging, with all either requiring an active fan-cooled solution, or a huge heatsink, or both. One of Phison’s development focuses was to lower heat output, which requires better energy efficiency. The new E31 is fabricated using a 7-nanometer process at TSMC Taiwan. Our power consumption testing shows that efficiency is truly stellar, it’s the best drive we ever tested, beating even the Maxiotech MAP1602 by a small margin.”

TweakTown: Phison PS5031-E31T SSD Controller Review – Affordable Gen5 Awesomeness

“Phison Electronics does it again. As we see it, the world’s first retail-ready PCIe Gen5x4 controller is a smashing success. And by smashing, we mean by far the best-performing flash-based DRAMless SSD delivered to date. What the E31T has to offer is an important milestone in the history of solid-state storage. It’s over 10,000 MB/s of power-efficient DRAMless mainstream consumer storage performance, which we’ve not seen before.”

Tom’s Hardware: Phison E31T ES 2 TB Review: The performance per watt champion

“The drive of your dreams is almost here. High performance, good power efficiency, and PCIe 5.0 levels of bandwidth for today and tomorrow. Phison’s E31T SSD controller enables amazing things for storage when paired with the latest flash, promising all-new heights for whatever system you use. Coming just after our preview of Silicon Motion’s SM2508 controller, the E31T takes a different tack, building a drive for everyone rather than just enthusiasts. In many ways, that will be more impactful in the long run.”

Experience the performance and power for yourself

The Phison E31T controller is like an Olympic athlete in their prime. This drive is chiseled to deliver peak performance without endurance-robbing bloat. By design, the E31T was built for the two remaining sectors not serviced by the flagship E26. The first market is easily the largest, with over fifty percent of new PC shipments: notebook systems. The E31T is the most efficient NVMe SSD available today, and it works in current PCIe Gen4 and future PCIe Gen5x4 or Gen5x2 notebooks. The second type of system is casual PC gamers, mainstream users and anyone with a new system that supports PCIe Gen5 but doesn’t want to increase the system cooling requirements.

Phison is dedicated to bringing the latest technology to market before its competitors. The E31T is the world’s first mainstream PCIe Gen5 SSD, and for many, it will be their first drive to deliver over 10 GB/s performance. It’s a true game-changer.